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Resources

The organizations listed on this page are federal or not-for-profit organizations that are dedicated to health care quality. Lawrence Memorial Hospital works with many of these agencies as we coordinate patient safety and quality improvement initiatives.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, formerly known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, is a federal agency designed to improve the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of health care for all Americans.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

For more than 60 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been working toward the prevention and control of disease, injury and disability. The CDC is a federal program that studies the leading causes of death and disability and provides health education to the public.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. It ensures effective, up-to-date health care coverage for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. CMS sponsors Hospital Compare, a national repository of evidence-based quality of care measures.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is an independent, not-for-profit organization. The IHI’s goal is to take the lead in improving health care quality worldwide. LMH participates in many of IHI-sponsored patient safety and quality improvement programs.

The National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI)

NDNQI is a database owned by the American Nurses Association (ANA). The NDNQI database collects and evaluates data about nursing care provided by U.S. hospitals.

LMH reports nursing data to the NDNQI database, where it is compared to data from other participating hospitals. Most of these hospitals are large, top-performing teaching hospitals. We use the information from the NDNQI reports to help us determine where to focus our quality improvement efforts.

The National Quality Forum (NQF)

NQF is a private, not-for profit organization. NQF’s mission is to improve the quality of health care for all Americans by setting national performance improvement goals, endorsing national performance standards, and promoting improvement through public education and outreach. Many of the quality, safety and patient satisfaction measures reported by CMS and used by other quality regulatory and accrediting organizations are those approved by NQF.

National Patient Safety Foundation

The National Patient Safety Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1997 to improve the safety of the health care system. The organization provides timely and important information on patient safety implementation strategies and practical tools and research to enhance patient safety programs in hospitals.

The Joint Commission

The Joint Commission is an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies U.S. hospitals and other health care organizations. The goal of the Joint Commission is to improve public health care. LMH tracks hospital performance across the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals.